• Jan 20, 2015
• Comments Off on A 90 day Performance Improvement Cycle
• cathlavery

A 90 day Performance Improvement Cycle

Stacey Barr, the founder of PuMP®, suggests that as we enter 2015 and start to plan for the year ahead, we don’t look at Annual Planning for our Performance Improvement, but instead think about using 90 day Performance Improvement Cycles.

As she says, the annual approach can result in missed (or even forgotten) targets, slow starts and exhaustion towards the end. The 90-day performance improvement cycle is about focusing on just one performance priority over a 3 month period. It’s not about ignoring other areas of performance that were chosen in your strategic planning stages. Instead it’s about narrowing the focus, and aiming to produce a measurable improvement in a single area.

“Imagine you have seven strategic goals (or five or twelve; whatever) that you can group under four themes. Each theme could be assigned to a 90-day block and you’d work on designing, implementing and delivering on the initiatives you chose to reach the strategic goals within that 90 day’s theme.” Stacey Barr

There isn’t just one way to implement the 90 day Performance Improvement Cycle. If your strategic plan is to implement long-term initiatives, you could break them down into four 90 day sections, and focus on designing, implementing and delivering on just one section at a time. The crux of the idea is that when you shorten the time frame, you sharpen the focus, and you achieve more.

Do you use the 90 day improvement cycle?  Does it work for your company?  Comment below and let us know!